Walter Tyrrell III, the “Red Knight of Normandie” (1065 – some time after 1100), was an Anglo-Norman nobleman. He is infamous for his involvement in the death of King William II of England, also known as William Rufus.

Life

Walter Tirel was born in

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, the son of Norman Walter Tirel, and was lord of Poix-de-Picardie in France, and of Langham, Essex (as appears in the

Domesday Survey Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

). By marriage, he became linked to the English royal family, having wed Adeliza, the daughter of royal kinsman,

Richard Fitz Gilbert Richard fitz Gilbert (before 1035–), 1st feudal baron of Clare in Suffolk, was a Norman lord who participated in the Norman conquest of England in 1066, and was styled "de Bienfaite", "de Clare", and of "Tonbridge" from his holdings.G. E. ...

. He died some time after 1100. The grandson of Walter and Adeliza, Hugh Tyrrel, took part in the Norman Conquest of Ireland and became the first baron of Castleknock.

Death of William II

On 2 August 1100, King William II organized a hunting trip in the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, fea ...

. William was presented with six arrows, on the eve of the hunt; taking four for himself, he handed the other two to Tirel, saying, "Bon archer, bonnes fleches" (" o thegood archer, the good arrows.") On the subsequent hunt, the party spread out as they chased their prey, and William, in the company of Tirel, became separated from the others. It was the last time that William was seen alive. In their search for prey, according to chroniclers, Tirel let loose a wild shot at a passing stag. However, instead of striking the stag as intended, the arrow pierced William in the chest, puncturing his lungs. Stricken with panic, Walter leapt upon his horse and fled to France. A version of this tale is given by

William of Malmesbury William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as " ...

in his '' Chronicle of the Kings of the English'' (''c''. 1128), in which Tirel is referred to as "Walter Thurold": :The day before the king died he dreamt that he went to hell and the Devil said to him "I can't wait for tomorrow because we can finally meet in person!". He suddenly awoke. He commanded a light to be brought, and forbade his attendants to leave him. The next day he went into the forest... He was attended by a few persons... Walter Thurold remained with him, while the others, were on the chase. The sun was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting fly an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him... The stag was still running... The king, followed it a long time with his eyes, holding up his hand to keep off the power of the sun's rays. At this instant Walter decided to kill another stag. Oh, gracious God! the arrow pierced the king's breast. :On receiving the wound the king uttered not a word; but breaking off the shaft of the arrow where it projected from his body... This accelerated his death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he found him senseless, he leapt upon his horse, and escaped with the utmost speed. Indeed there were none to pursue him: some helped his flight; others felt sorry for him. :The king's body was placed on a cart and conveyed to the cathedral at Winchester... blood dripped from the body all the way. Here he was buried within the tower. The next year, the tower fell down. William Rufus died in 1100... aged forty years. He was a man much pitied by the clergy... he had a soul which they could not save... He was loved by his soldiers but hated by the people because he caused them to be plundered.

Murder or accident?

To some chroniclers, such an " Act of God" was a just end for a wicked king. However, over the centuries, the obvious suggestion that one of William's many enemies may have had a hand in this extraordinary event has been repeatedly made. Even

chroniclers A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and l ...

of the time point out that Walter was renowned as a keen bowman, and unlikely to loose such an impetuous shot. William's brother

Henry Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) * Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...

, who was among the hunting party that day, benefited directly from William's death, as he was shortly after crowned king. Henry, who once threw a man off a tower to his death, was not normally troubled by moral scruples: on the other hand it has been argued that

fratricide Fratricide (, from the Latin words ' "brother" and the assimilated root of ' "to kill, to cut down") is the act of killing one's own brother. It can either be done directly or via the use of either a hired or an indoctrinated intermediary (a ...

was then regarded as a particularly horrible crime, and even the suspicion of it would have done great harm to the new King's reputation. It may be significant, as Henry's modern

biographer Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography. Biographers Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...

remarks, that nobody at the time seems to have had any such suspicions: contemporaries took it for granted that the death was an accident, such accidents being common enough. Abbot Suger, another chronicler, was Thurold's friend and sheltered him in his French exile. He said later: :It was laid to the charge of a certain noble, Walter Thurold, that he had shot the king with an arrow; but I have often heard him, when he had nothing to fear nor to hope, solemnly swear that on the day in question he was not in the part of the forest where the king was hunting, nor ever saw him in the forest at all.

Rufus Stone

The point where it is claimed that Rufus fell is marked with the ''Rufus Stone'' near

Minstead Minstead is a small village and civil parish in the New Forest, Hampshire, about north of Lyndhurst. There is a shop and a pub, the ''Trusty Servant''. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's grave is under a large tree at the back of the 13th century Al ...

in the New Forest. Tirel's name is written as "Sir Walter Tyrrell" on the stone. The "Sir Walter Tyrrell" pub is nearby.

Notes

References

* Hollister, C. Warren. "The Strange Death of William Rufus." '' Speculum'', 48.4 (1973): 637–653. * Warren, W. L. "The Death of William Rufus." ''History Today'', 9 (1959)

External links

J.H. Round's Medieval England: Walter Tirel and his wife
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tirel, Walter 1065 births 12th-century deaths 11th-century Normans 11th-century English nobility 12th-century Normans 12th-century English nobility Anglo-Normans Norman warriors People from Tonbridge William II of England